


The World Will Turn To Ash And Bone

by Celpar



Series: The World Will Turn To Ash and Bone [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), M/M, Mages, Magic, Nevarra (Dragon Age), Orlais (Dragon Age), Other, Thedas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22224706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celpar/pseuds/Celpar
Summary: A story of many, told by thousands.Running from home,Saftey and Shetler a luxury, living is a luxuryTheir kind scattered,Hiding and waiting until our freedom is called,and then we walk and fight.A story of many, told by thousands but the truth known by a few.
Relationships: Original Character/ Original Character, TO BE DETERMINED - Relationship
Series: The World Will Turn To Ash and Bone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752013
Kudos: 2





	1. Part One

**PART ONE**

Devereux is not her surname. A name given by the Chantry she was raised in. Valencia isn’t even sure ‘Valencia’ is her real name either. Maybe, another thing the Chantry gave her after her birth. But it was her name, Valencia Devereux, Valen… Val.

The Free Marches might not be her birthplace. But it was the country she had come to identify with. A poor excuse of the word home, as home was Kirkwall. A miserable nightmare of a life in the Kirkwall Circle of Magi.

But, in a storm of chaos that destroys her place of isolation, Valencia flees the nation of the Free Marchers with fellow mages.

Hiding from Templars, Seekers and the Chantry’s eyes as she and her friends try to find a place of safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will say this now, and only now:  
> 1) This book begins before the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, but leads into it.  
> 2) Valencia is my own character and I'm saying this before anyone gets annoyed, she is not a long lost Trevelyan, she is not secretly a Lavellan, or even a Cadash or Adaar. She is new and she is mine.  
> 3) I don't know how long this book will take me, but the story is dear to me and something I want to complete.  
> 


	2. The Hues of Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFMdmvwPx9g

_The halls that secured innocents to its stone was shrouded in the red of their liberator’s justice. Justice that burned away the rule of the jailers and lives of the chained in a single explosion that rained chaos onto the city of Kirkwall._

_\-----_

**Words were not Valen’s strength,** she was not one for stories, nor telling them. Her side of the story was not one she would be able to write down on paper in great detail, capturing the imagination of readers or enthral hearts and ears in taverns to echo her tale. And, if Valen was shoved into a chair, steel to the throat and threatened to tell her story in detail. Valen would have a slit throat.

All she could do was describe the vibrant hues of red that veiled the hallway. Red: the colour of Templar's cloth, a red that Valen, and every mage of Kirkwall, maybe even Thedas, feared. A red that brought nothing but a racing heart and a fear-frozen sweat. The sound of Georgia gasping next to her couldn’t warn Valen fast enough before a sandstorm of glass blew into the hallway, as raging as those foretold in the Anderfels. Grasping fires engulfed Valen as glass bullets flew by, escaping a melted death.

And it would be now where Valen would have her throat slit.

There was no clarity; only a blur of a memory. She was on the floor, curled up – no _lying_. She had been lying on the floor, hugging her knees tightly, and then she wasn’t. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of insects within the hall. Why were there insects? Why was Valen hearing insects buzzing and hissing and flitting by in swarms around her head? It rattled her, making her stomach anxiously flutter.

Dark umber eyes opened with a struggle, weighed by the _rattle rattle_ in her head and found no storm of insects, only the buzzing in her ear. Only that incessant buzzing. She knew there had to be insects somewhere - her eyes stopped on the gaping hole in the hallway, the scattered glass from the columns of windows and that vibrant red.

A delicate wine colour, a fresh shade of red, was leaking from her friend, Georgia. The girl’s body was slouched against the wall, a spear of glass lodged in her neck. The waterfall of wine cascaded around the painted red glass and soaked into the blue and white robes of the apprentice. Georgia - she was alive. No. She _is_ alive, she had gasped only a few seconds ago. Not even a minute ago they were walking away from the library of the Gallows. Not even an hour ago were the two running into the library to hide from patrolling Templars.

Georgia couldn’t be dead, she couldn’t be. But, Valen’s eyes were defying her mind. The glass in her throat would kill anyone…

But Georgia _had_ to be alive.

But the glass.

The blood.

The crack of the girl’s porcelain skin.

The very cracks that spilt that dastardly red-rich blood.

Valen attempted to crawl to her friend, eyes still blurred and insects still buzzing, obscuring the world around her. But, as one arm went to drag her to Georgia, she noticed her own little crawling cracks. Cracks in her mage robes and tawny brown skin and - her _bones_? Her arm didn’t feel right. Her _skin_ didn’t feel right. The skin on her face didn’t feel right. Shattered. Seething. Wrong. Like something else was there. On it? In it? _Fused_? Like the sky of colours in the rose windows within the Chantry. But not a variety of colours. Only a vibrant bloody red.

Just as Georgia lay in wine red blood, Valen was painted in the horrifying red of her own blood. Valen’s breath came quick, reaching for something that wouldn’t come. Her eyes blurred. Valen couldn’t breathe. The hallway was a vacuum sucking all her air and the insects out. Everywhere was red.

Red.

Cracked skin of red.

Shattered glass painted red.

Georgia’s lively dead red.

Red, red.

Too much red – too, too much.

Why? Why so much red?

Red.

Valen’s red.

Georgia’s red.

Red.

Too much!

A gloved hand slammed down on the girl’s shoulder with the all-too-familiar sensation of her mana being stolen from her core. Eyes Valen didn’t realise she had closed snapped open and met the same red that terrified her very bones. The red. The armour. The symbol. _Templar_.

She thrashed in the warrior's hold, her own voice returning, as did all sound and sensations. But Valen felt the weight of the Templar's deny on her mana, bringing a wave of exhaustion on her. However, the drowsy state her body faced didn’t foil Valen’s will to escape the vile red of the Templar armour. Too much. Too much. Too much!

“Valencia!”

Her name. The modulated voice of the Templar slowed down Valen’s harsh movements. She knew that voice? She knew them.

She met viridian eyes, “Alywn…?”

The man with a nose broken too many times and skin that was weather-beaten from his years of labour was crouched before her. A Templar who had Mage friends within the Kirkwall circle.

“Hey there, Love.”

Valen didn’t catch the smile he sent before she focused on the corpse: the corpse of her best friend.

“Georgia...”

Another slit throat.

The young mage reached for her friend once more. Alywn, the beast of a man he was, threw her over his shoulder and in doing so, spun the world around her. Words were spoken but not heard. The clash of steel, flashing windows and a field of magic casting, eyes of coffee brown and a repeated pattern of vibrant red dots in a void of blackness and once the line of that hideous red became hypnotic, Valen’s eyes closed.


	3. Splintered Paths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not edited

_Uncertainty lays before those whose lives have been sculptured by the swords holding the leash. But now the chains are broken, wills are tampered, and choices of sanctuary needs to be decided upon._

_\-----_

**A log cracked as did Valens** eyes to see a tree canopy shielding the star littered sky from gazing down at her. A steady column of smoke rose to the high treetops from her right, where heat tickled her cheek and the fire's warmth attempted to seep into her eye. A series of tired voices spoke in varies tunes as Valen struggled to regain her senses and search for allies.

“Don’t move,” An unfamiliar voice of ice and mischievous spoke on Valen’s left, “Your body is still weak from your injuries.”

Valen went to view the male voice to her left, however, a patch of blackness hovered over her left eye, hindering her sight. She let out a moan of discomfort at the hindrance to her sense and brushed a hand against the damp grass she lay on to sit upright.

“Hey, hey,” The pressure of a hand pushed Valen back to the ground with another grunt, “You’re hurt, Valencia.”

A word vibrated through her throat as she reached to push -whoever this person was- away but it scrambled and split into a cry with the striking pain in her left shoulder blade. A tear of muscle and stitches; defiantly stitches, regardless if they were any good, there were stitches. A hand forced the cry to a muffle and pushed her body back to the ground. The fine tether holding her skin ripped as her back impacted the grass ground.

With her good arm, Valen attempted to shove the anonymous hold on her off but her one good arm, her right arm, felt tethered, like her shoulder, but loose. Valen, against better judgement -but the girl was not thinking rationally at the moment- pulled her right arm up into the view of her eye.

Bandages coiled her hand and wrists, down her forearm and disappeared into the blue trim of her robes. A trim with sprinkles of dry red on them, bandages that had puddles of dry red leaking through the beige cloth.

There was red.

Red.

A sky of red.

Fused sand of red.

Red on herself.

Red of Georgia.

Georgia!

“Georgia,” Valen whispered.

And, like a moth to a flame, her word, the name, brought the familiar coffee eyes staring into her umber brown ones.

Brown eyes.

Warm brown eyes staring into her own.

Brown eyes sparkling with pride in a classroom of grey.

Imogen.

Enchanter Imogen.

Valen’s professor of Entropy was smiling down to her, slowly, tenderly, moulding her fingers into Valen’s cramped raised hand.

“Hey, there, Val,” The slim lip smile brought Valens heart rate down and girl stressed body lowered. Valen watched Imogen’s smile drop as the women tilted her head towards the stranger on Valens left. “Esmond, want to relax? I’ve got her.”

“Her shoulder is bleeding again, I need to heal it-” The man, Esmond, objected but ceased as Valen noticed Imogen’s solid expression. Valen knew it all to tell. “Right, I’ll go then.”

There was shifting on her left before a lanky figure with shaggy black hair briefly appeared behind Imogen and disappeared once more. “What a dope,” Imogen said before looking back to Valen.

The young teenager smiled, but found the movement to sting her left cheek, “Clearly he doesn’t know who he’s talking to.” She choked out, her voice gruff and raspy to speak, chalk scraping across a classrooms board.

“Clearly. But he’s the only one here who knows more about healing magic than the rest of us. And that’s not saying much.” Imogen said and helped the girl sit up, a straining process as Valen’s limbs moaned like the trees around her.

Imogen rested an arm to Valen’s back and handed a leather-clad waterskin to her. “Here. It’s water. You’ve been out for two days. Honestly, didn’t think you’d make it.”

“My body’s saying the same,” Valen's voice rasped, scoring the edges of her throat.

Her limbs clenched and faltered as Valen yearned for the waterskin with -a surge of recognition to her- not one, but two make-shift bandaged arms. The restricted motion of her limbs due to material blistered pain as the fabric rubbed against the skin.

Imogen was swift with aid, levelling the waterskin to Valen’s lips and shifted her hand from Valen’s back to tilt the girls head. A swift gulp of water filed in the dented walls of her throat and clarity to her dazed senses returned. The water capsule drifted from her perspective and Imogen’s face framed Valen’s vision.

Valen had known Imogen, a human Enchanter, since the day she was assigned to the Kirkwall’s Circle of Magi at the age of six. Now, nine years past, and this might be the first time Valencia has seen Enchanter Imogen’s dreadlock’s loose from a bun and resting in black strands on the women's shoulders. Her face, an dark brown complexion, mirroring the colour of the obscured forest around them -dimly lit by the neighbouring fire, appeared tired. Bags hanging under her coffee brown eyes from two days of stress with lips cracked and nasty looking bruise marks bitten into her neck in the shape of a hand. Her Enchanter robes torn on the seams and cracked blood spread across her garments like the freckles on Valen’s tawny brown cheeks… the cheek that didn’t feel covered, anyway.

Valen slid from one feature to another before her eyes glued to the burgundy stained cloth wrapped around her limbs, “What happened?” A rapid jolt spread across her face from speaking.

“Some _genius_ mage decided to blow up the Chantry,” Imogen stated as she wisely dealt with the bandages on Valen’s upper right arm. A thin surface of blood leaking through the make-shift cloth –most likely torn from the robes of a mage. “Knight-Commander Meredith activated the Right of Annulment. Templars and Mages were slaughtering each other. Alwyn got me and Wayne out and we found you. Some derbies from the Chantry hit the Gallows and slammed into the windows of the corridor where you and Georgia were.”

Valen hesitated, catching the solemn fall of Imogen’s face at the mention of her friend. “Did she-”

Imogen prevented the words to leave Valen’s mouth, “She didn’t make it, Val. We found her dead and you crawling to her on a floor of glass shards.” The downcast expression from her mentor shifted to clenched eyebrows and a firm stare. An empty pit formed in Valen’s stomach to the swift reaction as Imogen said, “What, in the Makers name and Andtraste’s will, made you leave your dorms?”

 _‘Because I was stupid. Because it was a good book that I wanted to finish. Because she is a good- is…was a- was a good friend.’_ Valen thought, eyes downcast to flaking pieces of blood on her hands.

“Valencia?” Pressed Imogen, both in tone and the tip of her thumb lifting Valen’s chin.

“We- we snuck out.” Mentor starred into student. “I wanted to find a book that I left in the library, she came with me and- the- then we were walking down the- and the window was there and then it wasn’t. I can’t remember it happening.” Valen’s words and thoughts stumbled over one another, “She was fine, Enchanter, Georgia was breathing, then she- I… there was blood and insects and… too much blood-” Valen’s speech broke with a sob and a blurred Imogen greeted Valen’s vision as tickles of water gathered in her eyes and fell over her skin.

“Hey, hey. Valencia, Val,” Imogen crouched further down to reach the young girls eye-level, “Hey, breath. In and out. In and out.” A bandaged hand of Imogen rested on Valen’s shoulder while the other indicted a ‘breathing’ motion.

Slowly.

Tenderly.

In the hazed mind and one blurred eye of Valen, she focused on Imogen.

Her hand. A hand holding hers.

Imogen’s thumb rubbing over Valens’s own.

Chipped nails resonating filed ones during a once peaceful- a once… a once _perpetual_ time in the classrooms of the Gallows.

A silvery voice.

One that lured Valen into knowledge for years.

Breathing in and out.

In and out. In and out. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

“There we go,” Imogen spoke and wiped a falling tear. Valen noticing the murky mixture of red swimming in the transparent liquid. “Good?” Valen nodded before Imogen once again placed both hands on her students -ex-student's shoulders. Her attention grabbed and held by the solid expression of the women. “Now, Valencia. Listen. The world we knew just blew up, literally, and we need to keep a steady head. I know Georgia meant a lot to you, but you need to be able to bring yourself back when those thoughts come back.” A male voice spoke up from nearby, Valen not hearing the comment as Imogen looked over and eyebrows scrunching up, “Shut up, Wayne. Better now than later.” Imogen stared back to Valen, neutral expression returning, “Can you do that?”

A sting hitting Valen’s nerves as her cheek expanded from breathing a, “Yes.”

“Good girl,” A soft pat on her curled locks brought the arrival of an armoured clink of a friend.

“Alywn.” Valen greeted the Templar, ex-Templar now.

Alywn stood alongside Imogen, the women, still at eye-level with Valen, sent a smile of acknowledgement towards him, “Hey there, love. How you feeling?”

“Sunshine and daises.”

A rough chuckle rose from Alwyn, “I like the attitude, but maybe with some food, I can believe it.” He nodded to Imogen. The two adults manoeuvred around Valen, the girl wrapping her arms around their necks as they lifted her off the ground and shuffled over to the campfire.

“If she starts bleeding don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.” The wavering voice of Esmond spoke up, the young man eyeing the duo tentatively lower Valen against a log with enough of a surface to support the girls wounded body.

“She’s a tough one, Esmond,” Imogen said and Valen noticed the indifference in tone the Enchanter held towards the fellow mage.

Valen rested her back to the bark, the squishy-wet moss growing on the log providing some comfort to its solid form. Imogen lounged against the same log, yet in a dignified manner that placed her at odds with the rest of the company surrounding the central fire.

Well, the use of ‘company’ created an image that it was large and united. No, this was not a large gathering of people and the divide of favours within this… group of mages and one Templar was clear. Valen saw on the other side of Imogen, sat Wayne, a human man proficient in alchemy, with wavy chestnut hair and a rough goatee with pale skin tone from his years indoors. Valen had met the mage on a few occasion during her lesson, as Wayne and Imogen were close friends, and the alchemist assisted in teaching her lessons from time to time.

Apposing Valen’s known group sat four individuals foreign by name, however, their faces had been seen by Valen in busy hallways of the Gallows. The black mop of curly hair that belonged to Esmond, a human with a complexion of soap owned by a nomad, sat at the end of a row of three blue-robed apprentices. First, an elvhen boy, sitting pin-straight with dark eyes blinking to stay awake in the fire’s light. Next to him, meadow-green eyes stared behind glass lenses into Valen’s dark umber: a girl with strawberry blonde hair in a high ponytail presenting her pointed elvhen ears smiled towards Valen.

Valen didn’t return it.

And lastly, a human girl with scattered pale patches across her cool-brown skin and dark hair parted away from an undercut, tied the knot at the end of the four individuals.

A thick stick with meat stuck on it was moved into Valen’s vision by Alwyn, the man retrieving the cooked rabbit meat that had been roasting near the fire. Valen presumed Alwyn, the only one in this _group_ who most likely knew how to hunt, had caught the rabbit -two rabbits, enough to feed the eight people around the fire. She accepted, observing the meat in the low light and unable to decide whether it had been cooked well or not.

And regardless if it was or not, Valen wouldn’t have cared. Her stomach ached for sustenance, as it had been two days of nothing inside it. Or, supposedly nothing. Valen wouldn’t put it past Alwyn or Imogen to feed Valen while she was unconscious to restore strength.

And regardless if she was hungry, Valen couldn’t get through the first bite of meat. Her jaw’s stretch to open placed strained on her injured facial muscles and the strength to tear the meat with her teeth took too much strength that Valen didn’t hold.

“Little bites, Valencia,” Alwyn recommended, sitting on the log and eating his rabbit.

A second try, a nibble of a bite, to tear the meat from its core left Valen frustrated. Her teeth, numb and feeble waned to tear, even a _small,_ piece of meat. In hasty, random bites, Valen pushed herself to tear something off with her weak teeth.

And the movement of her teeth stretched her face further into pain.

It was Imogen’s hand resting on Valen’s shoulder that paused her futile task to eat and gestured for Valen to give her the stick. Valen meets Imogen’s eyes that shed no judgment or hope, only one that portrayed her want to assist Valen’s struggle. The young mage passed it over, looking away as she did so and rubbed at her useless teeth to test their solidity and feel their frizzled state.

A crackle of log in the fire snapped Valen’s gaze across from her and barley caught the swift avoidance of the elvhen girls own gaze. The girl’s- Amelia? Aura? Something ‘A’, she looks like ‘A’ name- eyes hadn’t been staring into Valen’s but resting on her cheek, her cheek that felt cracked like the log in the flames. Valen prodded the mesh clad skin, her fingers dancing over the material that stretched from her jaw to the edge of her left eyebrow, with little confidence in her pressure, unaware of what would sting and what would abuse her nerves. Valen could barely remember the hallway, yet her body seemed to.

The red.

She prodded.

Glass burning air.

Red.

She scratched.

The blood.

Prodded.

The echo.

The running.

Red.

Flames breaking skin.

Red.

_Swat!_

Imogen’s hand returned to hit Valens’s questioning fingers, “Don’t touch it,” she said sternly and handed a ripped piece of rabbit to Valen, “Slowly this time.”

Valen eyed it as she accepted the food, it was a tiny piece, barley a piece, but most likely to relieve any pain once felt. With that final thought in mind, she chewed onto the meat, tingles in her muscles that forced Valen to hesitate her speed.

She swallowed the piece before resisting the urge to explore her injuries once more. “How bad is it?” Valen finally questioned, to no one in particular, only seeking an answer. Yet, the shifting of gazes from the three apprentices, the fall of Wayne’s expression and Alwyn shaking his head brought no raise to Valen’s wounded confidence. “That bad, huh?”

“I tried all I could, but,” Esmond spoke up, rotating his rabbit over the heat of the flame and looking up to the girl, “I’m gonna be honest with you, Valencia, it’s not pretty, and there will be scares. If I got to you earlier, I could have removed the glass, but the heat of the fire fused the glass shards into your skin. With Imogen’s efforts to stop the bleeding and any infections-”

“I get the idea.” Valen shut down the explanation, piecing the information together and reeling from the knowledge of glass stuck in her skin additionally to the burnt flesh. “Scares and glass for the rest of my life.”

"Unfortunately.”

“Maybe,” The human girl –Valen had no idea what her name was- said in a plain-manner, “but they will be some cool looking scares.”

“Super-cool,” The other female added. Valen could only nod to the remarks, unsure if the idea of ‘cool’ or ‘super-cool’ scares outdid the actual result of permanent scared tissue.

From first glance, Valen distinguished the difference in ages between the two females. As the human girl appeared older, most likely, in her late teens, in comparison to the elvhen girl, who looked to be sixteen.

“It was luck, we found you at all, Valencia.” Alwyn addressed, feeding the fire another log to eat. “It was unlucky, however, that we didn’t have a mage efficient in healing, like Esmond here.”

Imogen huffed, handing another piece of rabbit to Valen and not lowering her voice with her comment: “ _efficient_ is not the word I would use.”

Esmond's two disk-sized eyes snapped from his food to Imogen, glaring at the women’s affront as he lowered the meat from his mouth, “I helped!”

Imogen, _simply_ , raised an eyebrow, “You bragged about your ‘supreme’ abilities of healing and produced something mediocre, that I or even Wayne could have accomplished.”

The smirk of the human girl was noted by Valen as Esmond went to object to Imogen’s claim. Instead, Wayne’s voice arose in Esmond's place. “Maker’s breath, you two, we’re not doing this again.” Wayne silenced the growing feud and titled his head towards Valen.

His eyes spoke volumes of his state of fatigue, yet, he smiled at the young girl “There is a need of introduction, correct, Valen?” With his empty stick, Wayne pointed to the elvhen boy next to a pouting Esmond. The boy’s expression wide with uneasiness at the sudden attention and behaviour of the male human, “This is Theodore,-” Wayne then gestured to the elvhen girl, who attempted another smile at Valen, “Claudia-“(Not, an ‘A’ name. Why Valen thought the girl's name started with an ‘A’, she couldn’t remember) and finally the man gestured to the human girl who gave an effortless wave, “And the lovely, Laura.”

“Lauren.” She corrected in a heartbeat.

“The lovely, Lauren.” Wayne repeated himself, a smile still plastered on his face as he continued, “we ran into their group a couple of hours ago.”

“We shared a study session,” Theodore said, rubbing his knees and eyes dancing from Valen to his crossed legs.

“I remember, Theo.” Valen lied. She doesn’t remember him in her study sessions, or any of these apprentices in any of her classes. “Nice to see you’re not dead.” She confessed, attempting to relax his stuttering state and urge not to stare at her face. Not bothering to see if her words affected, Valen turned to Imogen, “The Circle still has our phylacteries. We can be tracked.”

“Already dealt with.” Lauren spoke up, interrupting Imogen’s silent words, “The room was hit by the debris from the Chantry. Everything in there is either broken or lost.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw the room get destroyed by a column with mother-fucking Andrsate herself on it. The phylacteries are done with. And if that’s not a sign from the Maker, I don’t know what fucking is.” Valen nodded, taking Lauren’s word as Valen did not feel deceit tied to her speech, or any necessity for her to lie at the current moment.

“Do we know what happened to First Enchanter Orsino?”

“With the way, the Templars were acting; Dead probably,” Wayne replied.

“Where are we?” Valen asked after a pause to obverse her darkened surroundings of a crowded forest.

“About forty, fifty miles west of Kirkwall.” Alwyn answered, reaching for his waterskin in the hands of Imogen, “At the beginning of the Planasene Forest.”

“And you carried me the entire time?” Valen took note of the lack of Alywn’s Templar armour. Only his arms lay in polished metals, his brigandine unscratched and his longsword in its scabbard. It was a shabby and lower-class look but little told the story of a Templar. Templars are too recognisable with their armour, as are mage robes. 

Alwyn took a swig. “I’m really fucking strong, kid.”

A slow nod, eyeing up his new attire -Valen felt a need to nod or approve of the decision to leave the armour- and contemplating the man’s strength, as she turned once more to the group. “ _So.._. What now?”

Wayne spoke up, hands in a steeple as he rested on his legs, “By now, the Chantry would have gained some control over the chaos that was Kirkwall and the remaining mages that weren't slaughtered, would have been rounded up to see who's missing. Word would be sent to the Divine and then they would send Templars and Seekers to intervene any mage who escaped the Circle at the Vimmark Mountain passages and put patrols on the roads to northern Marcher cities, Antiva or Nevarra. A mage could hide in a city, go to Rivain, or if their crazy enough, the _Imperium_.”

“If a mage escaped Kirkwall the moment things went to shit, like us, they would have a head start till the Chantry gained control,” Pips in Lauren, discarding her stick in the fire.

“Correct. All escaped mages have a head start till the Chantry has control once more. If a mage goes east they could have caught a ship to Ferelden or Orlais on any of the port-side towns or cities,” Imogen states, handing another piece of rabbit to Valen. “It’s all a race in the end. The Templars and Seekers have horses, connections, man-power and supplies to catch mages. Only a mage with a horse would make it to safety. A mage travelling on foot to the passages, or the port-side settlements will be caught.”

“Will they send patrols here?” Valen asked, a bug biting fear into her thoughts, “A big-ass forest perfect for mages to hide in.”

“They will, but it won’t be their main concern.” Alywn response came in a groan as the Templar stretched his arms out in reach of the night sky, “if you head west of Kirkwall you don’t go anywhere, you hit coast or mountains.”

“You're trapped.” Wayne finished the statement. However, his smirk with a gleam in his eyes contradicted the weight of his words.

Valen stared at that gleam with a puzzled glare, “Then why are we here?”

His knowing-smirk grew, “You’re only trapped if you can’t find an exit.”

Imogen sighed at the man’s theatrics.

“I know a passageway between the coast and mountains that leads to Nevarra,” Said Alwyn, “it’s long and its paths are not easy to travel through, but if you want out of the Free Marchers and not be caught, then this is the best option.”

“Yeah, been meaning to ask, how do you know about this passage?” Esmond questioned and Valen felt a sting of anger towards the man. The tone used and the non-wavering gaze he held on Alwyn urged Valen to defend the ex-Templar.

Alwyn held Esmond’s stare, “I was in association with an underground group to aid escaped mages from Circles. You learn a thing or two from them, especially hidden paths to cross borders or evade the Order.”

“And, why, didn’t you help this lot escape before?” Lauren accused and gestured to Valen, Imogen, and Wayne.

“I said associated. It’s harder to get mages out than you may think.”

“’ Associated’, _how_?”

“Stop it, Lauren,” Theodore piped up, head tilting towards the girl.

“No, Theodore, let her question.” Alywn allowed, hand raised to calm the fidgeting boy.” I aided them in providing Templar’s patrol schedules and misdirection of apostate’s locations.”

“Would anyone else know about this passage?”

“Aside from smugglers and thieves, I doubt the Chantry would be aware of it,” Alwyn answered undisturbed and ignored Lauren's leaning superstition and narrowed eyes.

Lauren’s face reached a tipping point as it shifted from the everlasting neutral rest to a flurry of frustration, “’ Smugglers and thieves?’ Is that meant to be reassuring to hear? Why should we even fucking believe you, or better yet, trust your word? You’re a Templar! Since when did Templars give a flying fuck about the freedom of mages?”

“Come on, Lauren, why would he help mages escape and then betray them?” Claudia attempted to soothe her fellow apprentice, a hand raised in either compassion or defence.

“Fuck, Claudia, really?” Lauren yelled. The strawberry blond flinched into the body of Theodore at the sudden attention of Lauren. “ _’ Smugglers and thieves?’_ Let’s just add in slavers, why not! Or better yet, he could just fuck us over and give us back to a Circle for a bounty.”

Valen saw Imogen’s hand shot out in front of Wayne, the man falling back on his ass and his attempt to control his expression failed with the anger rising in his eyes.

“Lauren,” Alywn interjected with no urgency or rush to his tone, “I swear to you, by the Maker and His Bride, I do not intend to betray. Only protect.”

Lauren’s posture didn’t change, her superstition seeping off her skin and illuminated by the campfire, “Why should I-” Esmond coughed. “Why should _we_ trust you?”

“Because he’s my brother.” Wayne stood up. Imogen’s hand twitched to tug him back but his restraining voice mixed with his normal jolly texture lay rest to her action. “Half-brother really. Different fathers, same mother. If you won’t take the word of a Templar then take mine, Lauren. My brother will not betray us.”

Valen leaned back, eye sparked with surprise at the reveal and head shifting between the ‘brothers’ and, yes, Valen could say the two looked related with the given knowledge that they shared blood. Same straight nose, jutted chin, eye shape and colour, and broad physic, only Alwyn's tinted skin and deep brown hair differed from Wayne’s dirty-blond hair and pale pink skin tone. Valen, having zero information about either men’s backgrounds, or the knowledge both had been in the Circle before she arrived, estimated that Alwyn _might_ be the older of the two, solely from more structured features, and a fifty-fifty chance of being wrong.

Alwyn nodded to Wayne, Valen catching the lift of shoulders from the brothers and a shared smile, before Alwyn turned to Lauren and her party, “I know that Kirkwall was not kind to you. To any of you,” Valen caught Alwyn’s eyes shifting over herself and Imogen's. “What my fellow Templars did to you was vile and fucked up. Our… service, the Templar code has been corrupted by fear and dominance over mages. But, I want my brother safe. As long as you are all with us then I will protect you.”

Lauren wavered, studying the brothers and their words before tenderly laying back against the log and her neutral expression returning to her face. “It’s not the best choice, actually, or the fastest.” She said, “Cassabrim is. It’s a merchant hub for fish caught in the Lucidian Ocean. We can get on a merchant ship heading for Orlais, less risky than Nevarra.”

“Yeah, ‘cause Orlais sounds better than Nevarra.” Wayne scoffed.

“The Chantry controls all of Thedas. Anywhere, for apostates, is just _as_ risky.” Lauren countered, head slowly rating to the man, scratching the knuckles on her left hand.

Wayne turned to Lauren, “If any mage from the Circle fled west, they would head for Cassabrim. Meaning; Templars will be searching the ships.”

Esmond spoke in the place of Lauren, head still leaning back as he waved his hands to the human, “She’s got family there and if we’re quick enough we can beat the lyrium-drunk bastards.” Esmond looked up over the tip of his big nose, “No offence, Templar.”

Wayne showed no bother of the comment (Alwyn, on the other hand, hid his emotions less subtly than his brother) and concentrated on Lauren, “You have family in Cassabrim?”

“I was born in Cassabrim.” Lauren dryly stated, “My family’s still there and they do trade with merchants of Orlais. We could get out of here and go to the stupidest of places that the Chantry would never check.”

“How far away is this mountain pass?” Imogen asked Wayne

“A week and a bit.”

“Cassabrim is four days,” Lauren said.

“By the main road. Do you want us to get caught?” Alwyn accused, eyes darting to the human girl, who appeared to bite back a response before Wayne spoke.

“Off-road, how long?”

Lauren swallowed, “Five. Five and a half if we’re slow.”

“Travelling by ship is one of the safest options,” Theo mentioned, his hands pulling the grass near his feet.

“Travelling is not the issue with your plan.” Wayne said, “Getting on the boat is. How do we know that your parents will help us?”

“I remember my mother was about to kill a Templar with my father’s sword when I was taken.” Valen noticed the stoic expression of Wayne didn’t waver, “They’re my parents. I know what I saw. I know they will help.”

Esmond’s body whiplashed up, a face of crossed eyebrows and annoyed eyes. “ _Listen_. We were heading for Cassabrim before we ran into you lot. _You_ do what you want to do. But we’re still _going_.

A layer of silence, like mist, lay over the group. Valen felt a wavering gaze and found Imogen staring at the girl, inquisitive eyes studying her face- her bandages.

Valen’s thoughts concluded the action, “Enchanter, no-wait-“

Imogen ignored the cry, turning to Esmond and Lauren, “Would your parents have anything to help Valencia?”

Lauren shrugged, “Probably. Food, clothes, medicine and shelter for a bit.”

Imogen turned to the brothers. All three pairs of eyes searching each other’s, a silent conversation that had Valen fidgeting as she watched. She knew her name was being brought up, her injuries, and her health, her group’s lack of supplies or knowledge to heal her wounds. But, to take a risk to be caught; no, no it was not smart, it was not worth the risk.

Valen reached out with her good hand to rest on Imogen’s forearm, eye pleading for her not to take the risk. Imogen acknowledged the request of her apprentice, but Valen saw the unwavering decision that had been met. A prick of weight sunk into her blood.

From behind her, Wayne spoke up, “We go to Cassabrim and see what happens. If we don’t like it, we go through the passage to Nevarra.”

Lauren nodded, “To Cassabrim, then.”


	4. The Desire Paths of the Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmTbUR89_RM&list=PLeuWgiYLbeD_zjT2UWC9zIVQPF11Jek4m&index=27

****

_A plan settled by a party of familiar strangers to travel to a coast side town._ _Injuries on the skin need to be healed and the injuries in the mind need to be accepted._

_\-----_

**At daybreak, the group woke.** Valen stirred to consciousness by Imogen after nestling herself close to the woman during the night hours. They were quiet in their actions, hesitant to break the morning’s calming silence. Whispers settling between each other hung on the mist of the forest’s bed, the mass of mother-nature also rising from the night with voices of its residence’s exchanging morning greetings.

They distorted the dead fire, removing a time on its life for others to uncover and follow their tracks. A few rations of bread, berries and remaining rabbit were shared between the group, not enough to fill their stomachs but to last for several hours. A quick exchange with Lauren on the directions to Cassabrim and the group was off. Alwyn and Lauren lead the front, with Esmond not far behind. Imogen and Wayne stayed at the rear with Theo, Claudia and Valen protected in the middle.

The muscles in Valen’s legs strained. Three days of uselessness had stiffened them and now with a full day planned of walking, her body was already aching. Her bandaged arm did not help with momentum and itched from sweat and friction. And at the current moment, Claudia’s goal to have a conversation with either of the teenagers next to her was nagging her more than her insufficient body.

“Do you think it’s true? What they say about this forest?” Claudia spoke up once more, her eyes flittering over the canopy before looking away from the dappled sunlight.

“And what do they say, Claudia?” Theodore asked.

“The Hedge Witch.”

The boy eyed his friend, a raised eyebrow with a friendly smile present, “Do I believe that the Hedge Witch, who died almost a hundred years ago still roams the forest? No, Claudia, I don’t.”

“Not _physically_.” Claudia’s voice lowered to emphasis her point and distribute Theo’s claim.

“If you say ghost-” Theo groaned with a smile, his curls bouncing to the shake of his head.

Claudia jumped at the comment, her arms animated, “But, I’ve read people still hear her voice when they travel through these woods.”

“What people?”

Claudia pretended to strum her stick –the one she had picked up a while ago and had been hitting the passing trees with- like a lute. “Bards.” Valen closed her eyes at the comment, the lack of trust with the source material eating at her nervous and to pull Claudia out on her foolishness to believe the words of a bard.

“Bards… Claudia, what bards go wandering through a forest?” Theo paused and titled his head, “better yet, what bards tell the truth?”

“The ones who go looking for content to get a decent coin for their songs,” Claudia said, and Valen considered her words, as did Theo who eyed his friend.

“What songs have bards made about the Hedge Witch?”

“Umm,” Claudia looked to the canopy once more, eyes unfocused to her surroundings as she attempted to recall the song, “I heard it once, a couple of years ago…umm… Oh, Traveller, something traveller… A witch with feathers -I can’t remember the song.” She laughed in defeat with flushed cheeks.

Theo shrugged, concentrating on avoiding the exposed roots and trying to recall any song he a heard with similar lyrics or tune. But, it was the quiet individual behind the pair of elvhen teenagers that carried a low tune with lyrics that Theo felt recollection too.

Valens’s gaze ran away from Theo’s and Claudia’s the moment the pair turned their heads to her quiet mumble of the bard’s song:

“Oh traveller, these forests hold a witch from many moons ago. A witch with a head of crows and a bosom of feathered clothes.’

‘A shield and sword of the holy knights slashed and cried to defeat her bile. Oh traveller, don’t go looking for Saramish.’

‘Saramish, the Hedge Witch, turned flesh to bush and bone to wood, oh, did you not know?” Valen trailed off, eye focused on the leaf-littered ground and her free hand fiddled with her fingers, “That’s the gist. There’s more to it of course, but I can’t remember.”

‘ _Georgia would have known all of the lyrics.’_

“You did better than me, Valen. I couldn’t even remember the chorus of it.” Claudia acknowledged, a bright smile sent to Valen who hesitantly nodded at the compliment.

Theo chuckled, “Slashed and cried to defeat her bile? What did she do, vomit on her enemies?”

“The bile is symbolic of her magic,” Valen stated, her one good eye looking up at the two who had fallen into step with her. “But, magic doesn’t sound good in the sentence, I guess.”

“It doesn’t really work.”

“Yeah, it’s- _‘Valen, I doubt that bard had any skill. The song is misleading’_ \- misleading.”

The pause between Theo and Valen allowed Claudia to start chuckling, intriguing the two others of her thoughts. “What’s funny, Chuckles?” Theo asked.

The girl continued to laugh into her sentence, “It’s just- imagine having the magic to use vomit and puke to attack your enemies. Just, ‘ _bla’_ and puke everywhere.” Claudia fumbled over her words and ended with “I think it’s funny.”

“’ Would give Templars a reason to avoid us.” Said Theo.

Valen nodded, “Better yet, it would give them a bigger reason to come after us.”

“Ah, yes, stop the mages from making the streets smell worse than they already are.” Added Claudia, swishing her stick in the motion of a sword, “That would be a better-recruiting tactic than what they have.”

Georgia’s varies complaints rose to recollection in Valen’s mind. The pair watching from the high towers of the Gallows onto the main courtyard as the Templars conducted their morning drills. New recruits every summer. More skittish swords and credulous minds.

The summer’s sea wind would carry odours of Kirkwall’s streets, especially those of Lowtown and Darktown to the Gallows. Although, Georgia assumed the smell would have been worse if either of them had the chance to walk the streets. But, the odours and increased numbers of Templars made the summer months the worst at the Gallows. Valencia’s earlier summers were ingenuous; back when the open spaces of the libraries and endless hallways were welcoming compared to the chantry she grew up in.

A final chuckle was shared before the conversation ended with the three remaining silent to crouch under a fallen tree trunk resting on a neighbour. Speckles of moss tickled Valen’s skin as she slid through and out on the other side. It strained her muscles, especially those in her neck, but, Claudia offered a hand to bring her back up. Valen pushed her hair to frame her face before accepting. The party fell back into a line as Claudia decided to walk beside her.

“How do you know the song, Valencia?” The older girl questioned.

Valen scratched at the cloth covering her brunt check, strikes of pain flinching her hand away, as she spoke, “I-um… I grew up with it, and stuff like it. The- the Sisters at the chantry sang it to the rest of the kids to scare us of magic. It’s actually not a bard’s song, well… the original version is not. It’s a Chantry lambent. That’s how the Sister’s knew it and a bard just made it poorly catchy. Probably, more well-known than the original.”

Claudia nodded to the information and followed with a quirk to her expression, “Your parents sent you to a chantry?”

“I don’t think they had a say in the matter since they've never been around.” Shrugged Valen, drifting her line of sight towards the makeshift path the head of the group were laying out.

“Oh… orphan?” Claudia winced.

Valen merely shrugged, “Tragic, isn’t?”

“Where were you before Kirkwall, then?” Theo asked, jogging to catch up with the two girls as he had drifted behind. Valen noticed his own stick in hand, smaller than Claudia’s and grey bark instead of a dark brown.

“Tantervale.”

Theo visibly recoiled into his body and shock overtook his face, “Damn, really?”

The girl nodded, unsure if Theo was asking or exclaiming.

Claudia’s features soften, although, the girl’s features were already soft, but, they fell in a way that Valen assumed she was sad, or concerned about the information. “What was that like? How old were you when they had you memorising the Chant?” She questioned after opening and closing her mouth to form a sentence.

“I don’t remember much. But, I know for sure that my first words were from the Chant? Now, I can’t get them out.” Valen joked, a huffed chuckle following after.

“Must have been a shock when they found out you were a mage.”

“One big slap to the face and bigger one for me when I was escorted to Kirkwall in an hour.”

“You were young; five or six? I think we were brought to the Circle a couple of weeks apart.” Recalled Theo.

“Six.” Valen corrected and grimaced as her leg spiked with pain from standing on a root wrong.

The sensation reminiscing of her six-year-old self soothing her sore knee after being tossed into a closed room. Awaiting for the templars to arrive and take her to a Circle; though Valen didn’t know that at the time. They never told her what she did wrong. She never had to chance to collect her stuff –she didn’t hold many possessions as a six-year-old, aside from a ragdoll of Andraste, or to say farewell to the other children.

Though the years had passed since the day, Valen could still remember the bruising grip of Sister Lorraine throwing her into the closed room –a cell, and Revered Mother Monique locking Valen in. And _two days_ passed of little words, only those of the chant invoked by the Revered Mother behind the imposing door before it opened to three templars. Their hold on Valen’s magic was suffocating back then, for the first time, her body brimming with new energy, but she adjusted to it over the years -less of the suffocation of oil and wax and now the timid struggle of breathing in humid air.

“I was ten,” Claudia announced, gesturing to herself. “I come from a small farming town just west of Kirkwall, called Snitchfields -weirdest name. I sneezed and froze an entire tree.” She laughed, “I was stupid enough to think I was really, really sick. But, someone must have said something because the next day templars showed up at the front door. My parents just accepted it. Not that they were mean or anything. I loved them, but, umm, very religious folk. They are the kind to see mages as the Maker’s sin and that sort of stuff.”

“Mhmm.” Valen nodded, understanding the weight of those words. Sister Lorraine’s voice ringing in her head.

“Eight for me.” Theo voiced, snapping his stick at the tip and throwing away the extract. “Word got around the alienage quickly. And within a few hours, templars dragged me up the Gallows. My parents didn’t even protest it.” He finished with another snap of his stick and threw it away.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Theo,” Claudia confessed, her face fallen with an attempt of a smile.

Theo waved the apology off, “its fine Claudia. They were complete shits from what I remember. I thought the Gallows would be better.”

“How'd that turn out for you.” Valen teased, watching the boy as he snapped and threw another part of his stick –twig now, into the surrounding bushes.

“Better beds, food and shelter than the alienage, Val. Templars still shitheads, though.”

“Not are all bad.” Claudia pipped in, tossing her stick in the air and catching it.

“The rare few, sure,” Valen commented in a low mumble, not caring if she was heard, but solely for herself to say. Her eye drifted from the lone ex-templar in discussion with Lauren at the front of the group to Imogen at the back, mid-laugh at something Wayne said.

  
  


*****

  
  


“What’s Esmond doing?” Valen asked Theo.

The boy’s head jumped from his poorly done fire glyph to Valen’s idle form against a tree and followed her gaze to Esmond. The man was walking around the inner edges of the glade the group had decided to rest in for the night. His body dipped in and out of the shrubbery and trunks, but Valen noticed the flickering of magic at his fingertips and counted this as the third time he had walked around the campsite.

“Right, you were still unconscious when he did it last. He’s setting up a protection line- protection circle... circular-line-thing. I don’t know. He’s been doing it since we left Kirkwall.” Theo shrugged and went back to attempting to light the campfire. “He said something like if anyone crosses over it they will be immobile and the ones within the ward will be alerted.”

“Oh,” Valen said and went back to observing Esmond, trying to catch a glimpse of a glyph or an enchanted item. Maybe, if she tried hard enough she could see if he was speaking a spell. Valen didn’t know how to read lips, but she could try. She buzzed with the idea of learning to read lips. How does one start in learning to read lips? Imogen- no, Alwyn probably knew how to read lips.

Lauren and Claudia were also wandering the glade, the pair, mainly, Claudia picking up flowers and sticks and passing them to Lauren. Imogen was off to the side of the glade, in discussion with Wayne and Alwyn, the brothers planning to go hunting before nightfall.

The group had walked till they rested in the afternoon, shared a few bites of remaining food before continuing through till the beginnings of dawn. Now, the last vestiges of the pink and lavender clouds were disappearing over the forest’s canopy, leaving a dusty purple sky, scattered with the occasional promise of a clear starry night to fall asleep under.

The thought of falling asleep under the night sky with no roof or canopy brought a smile to her. When Valen was twelve, before Knight-Commander Meredith had tightened the leash on the mages, Georgia had found a window in one of the classrooms with a ledge that led to a lower rooftop. With a shared collection of pillows and linen, Valen and Georgia snuck out of their dorms, climbed out the window and spent the night sleeping under the night sky with a little heat charm on the linen to stay warm. It was the first time Valen had slept with stars watching over her. The friends repeated the activity two more times before the risk of Meredith and her templar’s authoritative presence scared the girls with the chances of being caught.

Wayne and Alwyn returned to the campsite when night had cast its cape in the sky, two floating balls of fire illuminating their forms between the crowded trees. Esmond waved his hand, magic emitting and beaconed them to step past the protective ward around the glade.

Valen had never eaten fox before and as the meat was roasted over the fire, she doubted it would be pleasant. Valen stepped away from the campfire, as the cooking meat released an odour that was disgusting, to say the least, and ventured towards Theo, Claudia and Lauren.

The trio stood off from the campfire where the dirt rose above the grass and little shrubbery in proximity. As Valen neared the group, moving her curls to cover the sides of her head, she noticed they were surrounding a bundle of sticks with the flowers Claudia had collected, sticking out between the wood. The said girl was kneeling and placing stones of varies colours and sizes around the bundle as Theo and Lauren watched her actions.

“A pyre?” Valen concluded and stood next to Lauren. She had read or maybe heard it from others, Georgia probably, that villages in Thedas would place stones around their pyres. Valen remembered the pyre close to the chantry she grew up in didn’t follow the same practice. Its size and mass never needed the additions of organic stones for ornamental features.

“Yep,” Theo answered, scratching his chin, “Claud’s idea.”

“For those, we’ve lost,” Claudia explained, standing up and brushing her hands on her robes. “And those we don’t know we’ve lost.”

“Plenty of those,” said Lauren.

Valen had barley thought of it, but how many of her fellow apprentices or any mage managed to escape the Gallows or even avoid the death sentence or debris of the destroyed chantry? Jacquelyn and Peyton, who Valen and Georgia would eat and study with, or Riya, Cedric and Guinevere who the girls shared classes with and were often the three other apprentices they got along with. Are they all dead? Or did they escape? Would there be a Circle of Magi after the massacre of the Annulment? Would templars still be needed? How many templars survived? Would they come after the escaped mages, the apostates?

Valen shifted her gaze to Imogen back at the campfire. “Do you think many survived? Any mages that escaped like us,” Valen questioned, turning back to the trio. More names chanting in her head, faces Valen would never see or voices heard again.

“Doubt it was many.” Commented Lauren and shrugged at Theo’s displeased expression to her.

“I think we got lucky, Val.” Theo suggested, “But there’s no point in overthinking it. We’ll probably never know what happened.”

“What we can do, is have faith that some did.” Claudia responded, sending her ever-present smile to Valen, “And respect those that didn’t.” The smile softens and Claudia gestured to Theo, “Would you like to do the honours.”

There was a jump to Theo’s step towards the small pyre of sticks and flowers. His hand traced the fire glyph with more ease than earlier with the camp’s fire. Theo only repeated the glyph twice before a small fire appeared over his hand. He cupped the fire and crouched and edged towards the wood, dipping his hands as if he dripping water onto the kindling. The fire tickled the wood before grasping hold and flooded the bundle with heat and warmth that lit the four apprentice’s forms in the glade.

“Anyone know funeral prays, or something?” Claudia asked and the crackling of the fire occupying the silence answered her question.

Valen had never attended a funeral before, never thought she would have the chance to even if someone close to her died. And here she was, attending a makeshift funeral in an Andrastian’s practice for those she’s lost, to a life now gone. Would she weep for them all? For Georgia? Valen hadn’t cried since the previous night. Valen didn’t feel like crying, her eyes clear of any signs of tears as she watched the fire burn away at the kindle. Her body despondent, vacant in ways as her mind flashed back to the hallway and how quick it all happened.

Georgia had made a joke or was it Valen’s joke. Georgia was laughing at something, they both were. It must have been Georgia’s joke, Valen wasn’t the funny one of the two. She was laughing and then she wasn’t. Georgia had died laughing and Valencia had to watch it happen. See her best friend’s broken corpse of flowing blood.

It… it wasn’t fair.

Georgia should have lived, should have been standing next to Valen. They were fourteen and- fuck, it wasn’t fair, Georgia didn’t-

“Hey, you’ll bruise your skin,” Lauren whispered to Valen, the older girl knocking shoulders with her. Valen noted the tight grip she had on her arm and retracted her limbs to her side. Sniffling was heard to her side and Valen saw Theo and Claudia holding hands, eyes also focused on the pyre, tears shared between them.

“Sorry,” Valen mumbled, eyes focusing on the kindle that had decreased in size, the fire having burnt quickly.

“You don’t need to be, Valen.” Commented Lauren and Valen nodded in her head in an absent manner.

She didn’t stay to watch the rest of the kindle die out and joined the mages and Templar around the campfire. The smell of cooking fox meat not as noticeable. The rest of the night went quick; Valen was correct in thinking fox wasn’t the most pleasant meat, tough to eat, her mouth hurt afterwards. Alwyn made a comment on how the fox is supposed to be soaked overnight in running water to get rid of the ordure and soften the meat. No running water close by to do so.

Any water was finished that night. Wayne’s winter magic manifested enough ice to melt over the dying embers for the night. Esmond and Wayne took first watch and Valen fell asleep under the sparkling stars for the first time in two years, lulling her into laughing cobblestone and constellations whispering secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might end up going back to this chapter, later on.  
> Not edited.


End file.
